Chapter 26 Rafe
RAFE
My head feels like it’s both crushing and hollow, like I’m inside a chest that’s trying to expand but can’t find air.
A haze presses behind my eyes, bone-deep exhaustion laced with rage so thick it tastes like poison.
The mark burns along my ribcage—a sear of curse left raw and ragged.
I stagger through the villa’s corridors, blood falling from my fists, footprints smeared on stone, and I swear every wall shifts under me.
Kaleigh is always somewhere ahead of me in this darkness.
I hear her breath, steady and calm, as though she carries the quiet center while I tremble at the edges of chaos.
By the time I reach the central hall, the broken windows flood the room with ash-dusted moonlight, the scent of smoke lingering like a memory.
She’s kneeling over one of the wounded, hands glowing faint gold as she presses healing into burned flesh.
Her face is turned because she heard me arrive—and the moment she sees me, something in her stills.
I try to speak. I want to ground myself through her voice. But all that comes out is a rasp, low and broken. “Kaleigh.”
Her eyes widen, then soften, and she rises slowly, luminous in that glow. She shifts from the wounded to stand between me and whatever darkness I’m chasing. The glow pulses under her skin, richer now, attuned to something that thrums beneath our bones.
I lurch toward her anyway. The rage is a beast ripping free in me. The curse stabs me from within. The Seal’s pressure roars against my mind like a tidal wave. I want to fight it. I want to tear through the walls, rip Roman apart. But my steps falter.
She reaches up, fingers brushing across the scar down my neck. Her touch is light—soothing rather than fierce—and I swear something inside me quivers under that contact. Her glow surges, a tide of golden light that spreads outward, filling the hall, chasing shadows back into corners.
“You can’t let it win,” she whispers. Her voice echoes soft, but stronger than any roar inside me. “Don’t let it tear you apart.”
A wave of nausea twists through me and I buckle. The curse claws at me from the inside. The heat burns across my skin, and I retch, doubled over. The flare of agony rings in my skull, every nerve screaming.
She drops to her knees beside me, props one hand on my burning chest. The glow from her palm floods upward, warming the cold ache between ribs, softening the jagged edges of pain.
She murmurs words I can’t fully catch, not names or incantations, but resonance.
The light flows through me, pulsing like a breath, weaving into me like threads of dawn.
I gasp. The poison in my blood recoils, forced back by her warmth.
The rage that’s poisoned my mind sees her and falters.
The Seal’s voice claws at me again, louder.
I hear it echoing behind eyelids, a distant roar—Bond and serve.
Bond and serve. It tries to drag me back into that old promise, that old leash.
I grit my teeth against it, but the light in her hand brightens.
She sinks deeper, body trembling, channeling through her core.
I see it then: a bond forming. She presses her palm fully flat to my chest, glow flooding through both of us, threads weaving between our hearts.
I feel her warmth, her will, intertwined now with mine.
My breathing steadies. The poison recedes.
The Seal’s roar dips and becomes quieter, more internal.
I corner of my mind trembles with suspicion and fear. If I let it, this bond could burn me, break me. But I trust her with that risk. I trust her with everything.
My voice comes soft, ragged: “Don’t stop.”
She doesn’t. Her eyes close. The light flows through the scars, the bones, the ridges of my muscle, seeping into places I didn’t know needed mending.
The curse hisses, fights back, but the radiant thread she offers is stronger now.
I wrap my arms around her, anchoring us together as she pours more of herself into me.
Then it happens.
The Seal’s voice speaks one last time—distinct, cold, austere. It rattles in my bones, not as command but as a final warning:
“I’m coming.”
I taste its edges. My scalp tingles. A weight settles on my chest. But I don’t back away. I hold my grip tighter.
I open my eyes. They glow faint gold at first, then brighten. The bond pulses between us. I see Kaleigh’s face, tear-bright and fierce.
“I’m coming,” I whisper back. Not to the Seal. To her. To us.
If that voice wants to hunt me, to reclaim me, it will have to go through her light.
I pull her close, kiss her like it matters—because it does. Because this bond, this union of light and curse, is my salvation. I taste salt, sweat, gold. Her lips firm, reclaiming me.
When we break, I lift her off her knees, carry her against my chest. The villa’s halls echo around us, but inside our bond, there’s quiet. The poison is gone. The rage is tempered, but not absent. It’s mine again, sharpened, tethered to something true.
I set her gently on the cold stone floor. She stands, trembling. My arms don’t leave her for a second.
“I’m coming,” I say again. Because I mean it. Because with her by me, I will step into whatever war is left, whatever cost remains.
A knock like thunder drums at the front gates—an omen. I stiffen. The Signal. Roman’s forces moving in again. The Seal’s voice is silent now, only its promise lingering.
Kaleigh steps forward, eyes fierce in the gold glow. She places a hand over mine and presses it against her heart. I feel her life press back through my palm.
“Come,” she says—warm, sure. “Let’s go.”
I weave my arm around her waist. Together we stride toward the front doors, toward the war waiting in the night.
I taste promise. I taste purpose.
And I hear the echo behind every step now: I’m coming.
I’m coming back to the Brotherhood.
And I will burn the world to protect the light in her name.